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This is a response to this post:
gemini://pandion.midnight.pub/emphasis.gmi
This is not a new idea. Someone, somewhere, has already shown they can construct complex mathematical diagrams using this technique. However, Pandion suggests we might use this method for bold and italics in Gemtext.
Background:
So I was looking for a way to insert a non-breaking-space* on android, when I stumbled upon the app: ๐ช๐ณ๐ณ๐ฆ๐จ๐ถ๐ญ๐ข๐ณ ๐ฆ๐น๐ฑ๐ณe๐ด๐ด๐ช๐ฐ๐ฏ๐ด ๐ฌ๐ฆ๐บ๐ฃ๐ฐ๐ข๐ณ๐ฅ.
This opened a whole set of possibilities, like:
๐๐ผ๐น๐ฑ, ๐ช๐ต๐ข๐ญ๐ช๐ค๐ด, ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ๏ฝ , sแดแดสส แดแดแดs, uอnอdอeอrอlอiอnอeอdอ, ฬถsฬถฬถtฬถฬถrฬถฬถiฬถฬถkฬถฬถeฬถฬถoฬถฬถuฬถฬถtฬถ, ๐ฌ๐ฉ๐ก ๐๐ซ๐ค๐ฉ๐ฆ๐ฐ๐ฅ, ๐ฑ๐พ๐ ๐ด๐ ,
๐ ฑ๐ พ๐๐ ด๐, ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐, ๐๐ฆ๐ฅ๐ ๐ฆ๐ฅ, ๐ฒโ๐ฆโ๐ทโ๐ฎโ๐นโ๐ฎโ๐ฒโ๐ชโ, หขแตแตแตสณแตแถฆโฟสธ
NOTE: The app is called "irregular expressions keyboard".
Those are simply utf-8 symbols, that anyone can write, and โ ๐ฉ๐ฐ๐ฑ๐ฆ๐ง๐ถ๐ญ๐ญ๐บ โ every client can support.
They don't require rendering, and don't depend on the client.
They are actual ๐ณ๐ข๐ธ ๐ต๐ฆ๐น๐ต, and not "rich text" or anything complicated.
Whether or not these characters render properly will depend upon the context. My system does not render these characters properly. In Lagrange, due to its built-in fonts, the text renders as the author expects. But in the terminal, it does not. Even Vimini, a graphical browser, does not render them correctly. When the technique fails, it fails horribly, leaving the text littered with inscrutible unicode boxes.
What determines whether these characters render properly or not?
That's my question to you.
Apr 19 ยท 3 weeks ago
๐น๏ธ skyjake [mod...] ยท Apr 19 at 18:46:
This topic comes up every now and then. Here is some previous discussion:
My stance on this:
As a matter of principle, Unicode characters should be used according to their semantic meaning and not their visual appearance.
The appearance may vary wildly on different devices and apps. Relying on any single visual appearance, the one that you're seeing, will cause some percentage of readers to be unable to decipher your message. The screen reader case is just the extreme example of this.
๐ stack ยท Apr 19 at 19:07:
Yeah, using available weird characters in a font is often "invented". If you want your text not searchable or otherwise parseable (think accessibility for blind people, or translation), great.
๐ฐ๏ธ lufte ยท Apr 19 at 19:39:
The semantics of a character is not always well defined (read the fascinating story of RIGHT ANGLE WITH DOWNWARDS ZIGZAG ARROW at [1]) but I agree that one should consider they will not render equally (if they do at all) in all systems.
To your question of why they don't render everywhere, I know it's (at least) a combination of the available fonts (Unicode is constantly growing, and fonts need to catch up) and the capacity of the software to actually draw all symbols, even if the font has them. For example, Iced (the GUI toolkit I use for Vimini) didn't support this at all in its first versions (see [2]), and I'm not sure why it doesn't support *all* symbols yet.
โ๏ธ Morgan ยท Apr 21 at 10:33:
I wrote about emphasis a few times on my capsule, I'm still pretty happy with <my> suggestion on the topic, but I <<don't>> think it's likely to ever go anywhere ;)